http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/legislation/?doc=120127
Latvia grants asylum to first group of refugees from Greece
BC, Riga, 29.04.2016
The Office for Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) has decided to grant alternative status to the first two refugee families, which arrived from Greece to Latvia at the beginning of February as part of the EU's refugee relocation program, LETA was informed by the OCMA.
The family from Eritrea has already found a place to live, while the family from Syria is still looking for a place to live and are still residing at the refugee center in Mucenieki. Both families have put learning Latvian as a priority, and would like to live and work in Latvia.
After being granted his status, the head of the family from Eritrea, who has unique language skills, has been employed at the refugee center. His job description includes supporting the center's staff, ensuring communication with asylum seekers, as well as written and verbal translations from the Tigrinya, Arabic and Amharic languages.
The family from Syria is also looking to find employment as soon as possible.
As reported, the first six asylum seekers arrived in Latvia from Greece in early February.
Latvia has undertaken to accept 531 asylum seekers to be relocated from Greece and Italy under the EU-wide refugee relocation scheme. In addition to the refugees to be relocated to Latvia from other EU member states flooded with refugees from Africa and the Middle East, Latvia is also seeing an influx of illegal immigrants entering the country across the borders with Russia and Belarus, and some of them also file asylum requests.
Received on Fri Apr 29 2016 - 04:46:30 EDT